‘I thought so. How is Adele? I heard she was safely back in England. What a nightmare for her with her poor husband still in Paris. If she ever feels like doing any work—’
‘I don’t think she will,’ said Venetia carefully, ‘she’s down in the country with her children.’
‘Lucky her! Wish I could be. Still, some of us still have jobs to do.’
‘Yes,’ said Venetia, and then because politeness required some kind of response, said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.’
‘Lucy, Lucy Galbraith.’
She did remember her now; she’d been married to someone called Tim Galbraith and there’d been a messy divorce, he’d gone off with his own sister-in-law.
‘Yes of course.’
‘You must forgive me for bothering you. I hate it when I’m trying to read at the hairdressers. But I just wondered – well, it’s a bit of a cheek, but nothing ventured, and all that. I’ve had an idea for a novel.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Venetia. She struggled to imitate her mother’s famous polite coolness. ‘How marvellous.’
‘Yes. Actually more than an idea. It’s half written already. I suddenly got so tired of being a fashion editor, thought there must be more to life. And I know your family are in the publishing business, so I wondered if I could possibly persuade you to have a look at it.’
‘Well, it’s a bit difficult at the moment,’ said Venetia, ‘we’re frightfully limited as to what we publish, paper rationing you know and—’ She suddenly stopped. She might be turning away the new Gone With the Wind. ‘Er – what’s it about? Your novel?’
‘Oh well it’s really quite jolly, I think. You probably won’t agree. It’s the memoirs of a lady’s maid to a frightfully grand family.’
‘I thought you said it was a novel?’
‘It is. It’s fictional. That’s why it’s such fun. Personal maid to a duchess, she is. A frightfully grand duchess, well, I suppose they all are, really, duchesses, I mean, I’ve called her the Duchess of Wiltshire, anyway, she’s a minor lady-in-waiting to Queen Alexandra. She knew Queen Victoria, went around to country house parties with Alexandra, and then knew Queen Mary, of course. So it’s her own story, the maid I mean, with a terribly sad romantic bit, but absolutely masses of patriotic stuff about the royal family, you know how everyone loves them, especially at the moment—’
‘They certainly do.’
‘And all interwoven with scraps of riveting gossip and history. Like she nearly went on the Titanic, this duchess—’
‘My mother nearly went on the Titanic,’ said Venetia.
‘No! Well there you are. And then all the stuff about Mrs Keppel, and the First World War of course, and I thought I could touch on the abdication, and end it now, with the Blitz and the marvellous King and Queen going round the bombed East End every day, and saying how glad they were they’d been bombed too. What do you think?’
Venetia’s judgement of fiction was very simple; if she wanted to read it, it was good. She would want to read this.
‘You’d better come and talk to my mother about it,’ she said.
‘Oh Venetia, it sounds dreadful. Real housemaid stuff. Quite literally. Can you see us getting that past your father?’
‘I think we should try,’ said Venetia firmly.
‘But why? Why should it be any good?’
‘Well because she’s already a writer.’
‘A journalist!’ said Celia derisively. ‘That is not quite the same thing, Venetia.’
‘Dell says she writes really well. I asked her.’
‘I don’t feel Adele’s judgment of literary skill is any better than yours.’
‘Well just take a look at it,’ said Venetia, unmoved by this insult.
‘You’ve got to, anyway, I’ve fixed for her to come.’
‘I wish I’d never mentioned all this to you,’ said Celia.
She was in a very bad temper the day Lucy Galbraith was coming in. She had come back from a particularly difficult visit to Kit, and had set herself so firmly against the book that Venetia had almost been tempted to cancel the appointment. But she hadn’t. The book might be as good as it sounded. And besides, she felt a sense of solidarity with Lucy Galbraith. Divorced women had to stick together.
‘I have to tell you we’re not looking for popular fiction,’ said Celia. This was so patently untrue that Venetia opened her mouth to contradict her, caught her mother’s eye and shut it again. Celia picked up the rather messy-looking typescript as if it was going to soil her fingers and flicked through it.
‘And certainly not of this genre.’
‘Why not?’
Celia wasn’t used to being challenged; she stared at Lucy, her features frozen in disapproval.
‘Because it is hardly fashionable. People want—’ She paused.
‘All sorts of things.’ Lucy smiled at her sweetly. ‘Like the poem by that American woman, what’s it called, oh yes, The White Cliffs of Dover. And then How Green Was My Valley. And I believe Collins are doing a picture series about the English countryside.’
‘How do you know that?’ said Celia sharply.
‘I’m a journalist. We get press releases. And then War and Peace has been re-published, hasn’t it? And of course there’s Gone With the Wind . . .’
‘I trust you don’t imagine this is a new Gone With the Wind. We have received at least a hundred manuscripts whose authors have been labouring under that delusion.’
‘Of course not. But this could be very popular. Cheer people up. And it’s quite patriotic in its own way. Please have a look at it, at least, Lady Celia. Just a few pages.’
‘I’m extremely busy. I can’t do it now, you’ll have to leave it with me.’
‘Of course. Now I haven’t told you my provisional title.’
‘No, I don’t think you have. Of course we always retitle books.’
‘Well, you might like it.’ She was a pretty woman, dark, with very large eyes; she fixed them earnestly on Celia. ‘But of course you could change it if you published it. I wouldn’t mind.’
‘I really don’t think there is the slightest chance of our publishing it. As I told you, it’s not what we’re looking for. But I will, as a favour to you as a friend of my daughters, ask one of our readers to look at it.’
‘Thank you so much. I’ll – well, I’ll leave it with you, shall I?’
‘Please do. Just put it down there. Venetia, could you show Mrs Galbraith out, please?’
‘Of course. Actually we’re going to have lunch.’
‘Well don’t be long. There’s a great deal of work to be got through before the end of the day.’
When Venetia got back from her lunch with Lucy Galbraith, an hour and a half later, she looked into her mother’s office. Celia appeared not to have moved. She was sitting absolutely still, her face frozen in a mixture of concentration and a sort of fierce hunger, turning the pages of Lucy Galbraith’s typescript, making pencil notes on the pad at her side as she did so.
She looked up at Venetia and frowned. ‘You’ve been a very long time. I wanted to speak to you about this rather urgently. What was the title your friend proposed?’
‘Grace and Favour.’
‘I don’t dislike that. We might use it. Tell me, how far has she got with the book? Is there any more, or is this all she’s done?’
‘I think that’s all.’
‘Well, she’ll have to get a move on, if we’re going to publish in the spring.’
‘The spring! But Mummy—’
‘Well, we’ve got nothing else in sight. This will have to do. It’s not bad, Venetia, not bad at all. Please ask Mrs Galbraith to come back and see me tomorrow.’
‘And now it’s like a love affair,’ Venetia reported to Adele that weekend, ‘Lucy can do no wrong. You should have seen them on Thursday, heads together, of course Lucy’s very stylish which helps, and well bred too, thank goodness—’
‘Not quite as well bred as she seems,’ said
Adele. ‘Father was an insurance clerk. She’s put all that polish on herself. With a little help from Tim Galbraith and his money of course.’
‘Well, good for her. Let’s hope Mummy doesn’t find out just yet. They’re going to Worth together tomorrow, what about that? Press show, Mummy’s frightfully excited. Anyway,’ she grinned at Adele, ‘of course she always knew it would be a marvellous read, from the moment I first told her about it, it now turns out. Also it’s really cheered her up, she seems to have got some of her old energy back.’
‘Venetia, how on earth do you stand it, working with her?’
‘Oh,’ said Venetia, looking vague, ‘I find it quite easy. I just don’t take any notice of anything she says.’
‘I wouldn’t find that easy.’
‘Well I do. Anyway, anything that takes my mind off Boy is awfully welcome.’
Boy’s silence since his last cold, distant letter, his departure without saying goodbye to her, had hurt her so badly she started to cry every time she allowed herself to think about it. The only thing that kept her going was the reflection that he was clearly every bit as much of a rotter as she had always thought, using her like that, on his last night, and then just disappearing, after those few first nice letters. It was obvious he’d found another woman. She was intensely grateful that he had no idea about the baby. The humiliation of that would have been unbearable. For him to have known, recognised her incompetence, her foolishness in allowing it to happen, and then been forced to stay with her against his will: that would have been absolutely dreadful. At least she had her dignity. If you could call being seven months pregnant and unmarried dignified. She could just have the baby, and probably by the time the war was over, she would have some story to tell him, some lover who had been killed in the war. He could afford to support it along with the other children.
She still found that hideous affair of his difficult and painful; and it had turned her irrevocably against Barty. She couldn’t help it. It might not be her fault, well of course it wasn’t her fault, but she had known and not warned her about it, probably enjoying – just for once – a sense of superiority over her. And anyway, she hadn’t quite been able to believe the story of how Boy had met Abbie. Just accidentally. It seemed a bit unlikely. Barty had no doubt thought Boy would like Abbie, clever, musical, talented Abbie, so different from his own stupid wife, and arranged for them to meet. Not with anything really wrong in mind, but it would just – amuse her, it would be a sort of mild revenge. She would never believe anything else. Sometimes, before Barty had gone off to join the ATS and she had looked at her sitting at her desk, working earnestly away, she had actually felt quite sick. Working at Lyttons was much more comfortable without her.
Venetia absolutely loved her job; it fuelled her these days, made her feel alive and what she could only describe as pleased with herself. Not in an awful, smug way, but after years of believing herself stupid, fit for nothing except having babies and giving well-dressed dinner parties, it was wonderful to feel her mind growing, flexing its muscles, moving into action. She was incredibly grateful to her mother for making it possible; at first she knew she had been, if not exactly a hindrance, not a great deal of help. But now she could see she was actually valuable, especially with LM doing less, and that, as well as providing Celia with some very valuable support, her section of the company was running sweetly and smoothly.
She seemed to have a natural instinct for business – God knows where that came from, possibly her grandfather, old Edgar. She could spot an opportunity from nowhere and then just make it work, persuade bookshops, department stores, libraries, that it was exactly what they wanted to do and justify it to them financially. Her children’s book club was going extremely well, and she’d had this idea of a competition now, an essay competition, to be judged by Sebastian Brooke. Of course she had no editorial instinct at all (although she had discovered Grace and Favour and suggested the cookery list), but there were plenty of people with that, including her mother. Venetia had an idea that they wouldn’t be working nearly so well together if she were trying to become involved in that side of things.
She dreaded stopping, going into purdah in the country to have her baby; she had decided to stay until Christmas at least. It wasn’t due until near the end of January. Someone else might start muscling in on her job in her absence. And if that happened, she might get extremely nasty.
Afterwards she often thought how extraordinary it was that the news of her pregnancy had never reached Boy. She was, after all, working and extremely visible in London whilst visiting bookshops and department stores, even lunching and occasionally dining in restaurants. There were surely other wives to note her condition and gossip about it and letters being written to husbands in Boy’s regiment. But it did not. And there was a good reason for it.
Conditions in the desert were appalling: desperately uncomfortable, military success negligible, morale at times shaky. A fierce comradeship existed among all the men. They kept their own and one another’s spirits up by sheer determination and considerable effort, and unwelcome news from home could only work against that.
In fact, Sheila Willoughby-Clarke had heard of Venetia’s pregnancy and indeed wild speculation about who the father might be, and had written of it to her husband. But Mike Willoughby-Clarke was very fond of Boy and had been extremely remorseful at the misery he had caused him by telling him he had seen Venetia dancing at the Dorchester; he could see no point in reviving that misery with what might, after all, be malicious gossip. And so he kept the news to himself and when another officer in receipt of the same gossip asked him if he had heard anything of it Mike told him to keep his mouth shut as well. ‘Poor old chap’s very cut up about his divorce. No point making him feel worse. Keep quiet about it, there’s a good fellow.’
And so Boy remained in an ignorance which, if not blissful, was at least not painful.
Adele was taking Noni for a walk to the stables when she found Izzie crying. She was crying very quietly – Izzie did everything quietly, so as to give the least possible trouble – but quite hard. She was sitting on a seat behind the Dovecot where no one could see her. Adele sat down quietly beside her and put her arm round her. Noni clambered up on the other side.
‘What is it, sweetie?’
‘Oh – nothing. Sorry, Adele.’
‘Don’t say sorry. And it obviously isn’t nothing. Come on, tell me.’
Silence. ‘Missing Daddy?’
‘Oh – a bit. But—’
‘Kit?’
Izzie looked at her; her brown eyes were dreadfully swollen, her little face blotchy, her long tendrils of hair bedraggled. ‘It’s Kit. I try so hard, and he’s so miserable still. Half the time he won’t – won’t—’
‘I know, darling. He’s very – difficult. But you’re doing much better with him than anyone. Anyone at all. We all think you’re wonderful.’
‘But that’s just the point.’ She drew in her breath, sighed, then suddenly collapsed into tears again. ‘He just told me he really would rather I didn’t bother him any more. That’s what he said. Bother him. I thought I was helping, a bit at least, but it turns out I’m making it worse.’
‘Oh, Izzie, how could you be?’
‘Well he says I am. He just wants to be left alone. He says all I do is disturb his thoughts. That I really get on his nerves. I feel so bad, Adele, so stupid.’
Adele felt a rush of rage at Kit; at so savage a rejection of this sweet, gentle little creature. ‘You mustn’t. He’s obviously having a bad day.’
‘They’re all bad days,’ said Izzie, her voice rising again, ‘all of them. I feel so sorry for him, and I can’t help. He doesn’t want me to help. It’s so horrible, Adele. What can I do?’
‘I think the best thing for now is nothing,’ said Adele carefully, ‘just leave him alone. He doesn’t deserve you.’
‘Oh don’t say that! It’s all so dreadful for him, we have to—’
‘I know it’s dreadf
ul for him. But it’s dreadful for lots of people at the moment. People getting killed, horribly injured, losing their homes, the people they love—’
She spoke soberly; Izzie looked up at her.
‘It must be horrible for you.’
‘It is quite.’
‘We miss Papa, don’t we Maman?’ said Noni, her almost-black eyes fixed tenderly on Izzie.
‘Yes, we do.’
‘But we have to be brave.’
‘That’s right. Now listen, Izzie, let’s go and wash your face. Shouldn’t you be in lessons?’
‘Miss Parsons sent me out. Because I was crying. She’s awfully stupid anyway. Most of them are.’
Adele looked at her; she was such a clever child, far ahead of most of the lessons she was being given. She couldn’t stay here much longer, surely. Sebastian would have to find a boarding school in a nice safe place for her. Only – goodness, they’d all miss her.
‘Well – come and see Billy and the horses with us then. And just leave Kit be for a few days. Give him time.’
‘Yes, all right. Sorry.’ She blew her nose.
‘Don’t keep saying sorry.’
That evening Adele went to see Kit; he was in his room staring morosely into the distance, as usual, smoking.
‘Hallo, Kit.’
‘Hallo.’
‘How are you feeling?’
A shrug. ‘How do you think? Pour me a whisky, Adele. It’s just over there, I’m told, on a tray.’
‘Please.’
‘What?’
‘I said “please”. Little word, you know, makes people want to help you a bit more. Try it.’
He was silent.
‘Fine. You can wait for your whisky. Now then. I found Izzie this morning, sobbing in the grounds.’
Silence.
‘Because of what you’d said to her.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really. Now look, Kit. I know you’re feeling wretched, of course you are, we’re all desperately sorry for you and you can take it out on us if you have to, but not on Izzie. She’s such a dear little thing and she’s tried so hard, it’s simply not—’
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